The Author of the Peace and Justice Report on Precarious Work says seven decades of research in the US shows ramping up the minimum wage does not increase unemployment or depress the economy.
David McLaren says Alberta is raising its minimum wage to $15/hr and is leading the country in economic growth.
He adds everyone knows you can't live on the current minimum wage of $11.40/hr.
McLaren says if everyone made at least $15/hr in Grey Bruce it would boost the economy.
"Then there would be $40-million more in the region's economy. That's a lot of money, and that's money that those folks would spend locally," he explains.
And while raising the minimum wage is a good start a living wage in the region would actually now be $20 an hour.
"In order to have the kind of things that allow you to take part in the economic and social life of your community and care for your kids, you need to earn about $20 an hour," said McLaren
Visits to food banks in Grey Bruce went up 92% between 2013 and 2015.
McLaren asks critics of a higher minimum wage if a good business plan's success should depend on keeping employees in poverty.
McLaren says over 200,000 good manufacturing jobs have disappeared since the recession. He adds 94% of jobs created since NAFTA are part time and precarious.
"I hope that they review those statistics, and realize that they're going to have to do something more than just keep NAFTA as it is. Finally, someone is going to have to sit down and say OK, how can we change NAFTA to help reverse that flow. Or if we can't, do we need to have that NAFTA agreement at all?" he says.
McLaren says unions have been gutted since the Mike Harris years, and the result is a growing wage gap. He says it's time for a home grown economy.
McLaren says that Canadian Families have the highest debt in the G7, and working age poverty is third last of 17 OECD countries.
He says Canada seems to be in a race to the bottom.
